This Is Not a Metaphor

“Robots allow the cows to set
their own hours, lining up for automated milking five or six times
a day — turning the predawn and late-afternoon sessions around
which dairy farmers long built their lives into a thing of the
past. With transponders around their necks, the cows get
individualized service. Lasers scan and map their underbellies, and
a computer charts each animal’s ‘milking speed,’ a critical factor
in a 24-hour-a-day operation. The robots also monitor the amount
and quality of milk produced, the frequency of visits to the
machine, how much each cow has eaten, and even the number of steps
each cow has taken per day, which can indicate when she is in
heat.”
This is how I would prefer to be milked, if I had to be milked,
I guess.